Though he made a number of appearances during the Olympics, Emmanuel Macron largely retreated to his holiday residence in southern France for the duration of the Games. From there, having called a political truce as Paris put on a triumphant sporting spectacle, the president hoped to plot a path out of the self-inflicted chaos created by his decision to call a snap election in the middle of the summer.
No such luck. The Olympic athletes are long departed, and the traditional September rentrée looms. But no new government is in place – the longest such hiatus since immediately following the second world war – and bitter acrimony reigns. This week, Mr Macron used his presidential prerogative to rule out any candidate for prime minister put forward by the New Popular Front (NFP), the leftwing alliance that by a short head came first in the July poll.
That was the latest mistake in a tragicomedy of errors. No parliamentary grouping has an overall majority in the Assemblée, and a minority NFP government would have had its work cut out to survive for long. But it would have been the most democratically clean outcome. Instead, it appears that the president hopes to cobble together a pliant coalition leaning to the right; one which will, above all, leave his unpopular pension reforms intact.
That will be no easy task. Mr Macron’s presidency is now grievously compromised. Humiliated by Marine Le Pen in June’s European elections, he had hoped to restore his authority in surprise legislative ones by rallying a “republican front” to see off the extreme right. This rehabilitation strategy was undone by the unexpected unity and success of the left. For ambitious conservative politicians, the prospect of linking their fortunes to a lame duck has so far proved less than enticing.
But it is not all about the president and his wishes, or rather it shouldn’t be. Through a combination of tactical subtlety, daring and technocratic brio, Mr Macron has divided and ruled French politics since 2017. But by indulging his characteristic desire to remain in complete control of events, even after losing, he is acting against the best interests of the country he leads.
Plummeting trust in politics has contributed to the rise of the far right across Europe, as well as in France. Against that backdrop, refusing to grant the election’s narrow victors at least a chance to forge a consensus is unwise and shortsighted. Mr Macron has in part justified his stance by the posing of a false equivalence of extremes between Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI) and Ms Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. But after repeatedly relying on a broad republican front, including LFI, to keep Ms Le Pen out of power, that is nakedly disingenuous.
For now, France drifts. Ms Le Pen – whose eyes have always been principally on the prize of the 2027 presidential election – can afford to bide her time as the dysfunctionality of mainstream politics plays out. The prospect of cohesive government remains remote. Mr Macron’s caretaker prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is currently working on a provisional budget plan for the autumn, which he acknowledges may be overturned by his unidentified successor. Hubris, not for the first time, got the president into this mess. Newfound humility on his part will be required to get France out of it.
